The 6-foot-4, left-hander from Danville basically bailed out the Cardinal's season. They had a slower start than the tortoise against the hare until he came to the rescue.

On April 12, Stanford was 3-8 in the Pac-12. Then coach Mark Marquess, impressed by Hochstatter's 6 2/3 innings of shutout relief in a 2-1 loss to eventual conference champion Oregon State, gave him his first start of the season against Washington. He won 6-3, the first of seven straight wins to run his record to 10-1.

The Cardinal (30-23) rallied in the second half of the season to earn a berth in the NCAA tournament. They'll face Indiana State (35-16) in a regional game in Bloomington, Ind., Friday at 11 a.m. The other teams in the regional are host Indiana (42-13) and Youngstown State (16-36).

Stanford's struggles had a lot to do with inexperience and a killer early schedule.

"If you look at who started for us, we had a lot of freshmen and sophomores," Hochstatter said. "As the year progressed, they gained experience. They started to learn to compete and make that transition from high school to college."

The low point, he said, was flying home from Tennessee in early March after losing three games to Vanderbilt.

"But we battled the whole year and maintained a good level of morale," he said. "There was never a point where we lost hope."

Hochstatter has struck out only 34 batters in 72 innings. But the opposition has hit a paltry .202 with just three home runs, none since his first start.

His fastball has added a few miles per hour from last year and now tops off in the upper 80s. More to the point, he's keeping it down in the strike zone.

Pitching coach Rusty Filter "had him add a cutter, which is a little easier to control," head coach Mark Marquess said. "He's always had a pretty good curve, but the cutter has helped him immensely."

Hochstatter and the other current starters, Pac-12 Freshman of the Year Cal Quantrill (5-5, 2.92 ERA) and sophomore Logan James (3-3, 4.13) were aided by a defense that posted the Pac-12's highest fielding percentage (.984) in conference games.

"We had consistent pitching in the second half, and the offense has definitely picked it up in the second half, too," third baseman Alex Blandino said.

Blandino, out of St. Francis-Mountain View, would have tied for the Pac-12 home run title with 12 if he hadn't been robbed of one by Washington center fielder Braden Bishop, his former high school teammate.

If Stanford needs inspiration, it can look to the 2007 Oregon State team. A year after winning the national title, it finished sixth in the Pac-10 (10-14) but steamrolled through the College World Series to win another title.

Stanford glance

Season

On April 12: 3-8 Pac-12, 11-16 overall, .246 batting average

Since April 12: 13-6 Pac-12, 19-7 overall, .292 batting average

Postseason

Trips to College World Series: 16, including 14 since 1982

Trips to CWS since 2004: 1 (2008)

National championships: 2 (1987, '88)

A man for two seasons

Zach Hoffpauir, a safety on the Stanford football team and one of only 10 FBS players in college baseball, made the postseason in both sports this school year. An outfielder who's hitting .339, he'll play in Friday's NCAA baseball regional in Bloomington, Ind. Hoffpauir doesn't think foregoing spring football will hurt his chances of starting at safety in the fall. "Obviously guys get better in spring ball, but you earn your job in fall camp," he said.